Tag Archives: James Goodwin

April 2016: “The Future of the History of the Human Sciences”

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To mark the end of James Good‘s time as editor of History of the Human Sciences a special two-day meeting on “The Future of the History of the Human Sciences” is planned for April 7th and 8th, 2016. The meeting, hosted jointly by Chris Renwick and History of the Human Sciences, will take place at the University of York and feature as speakers: Roger Smith, Steve Fuller, Peter Mandler, Marianne Sommer, Amanda Rees, Michael Finn, Elizabeth Toon, Jessica Hendy, Maurizio Meloni, Des Fitzgerald, Alexandra Bacopoulos Viau, and Jonna Brenninkmeijer. Full details about the meeting, including (free) registration and postgraduate bursary information, follow below.

The Future of the History of the Human Sciences
University of York
Thursday 7th & Friday 8th April 2016

This two-day meeting, hosted jointly by Dr Chris Renwick and History of the Human Sciences, gathers together established scholars and early-career researchers to consider changes wrought in the broad interdisciplinary field of the history of the human sciences by new developments in the medical humanities, biological sciences, and literary/cultural theory. Marking the end of James Good’s 15-year tenure as HHS editor and the beginning of a new editorial team, comprising Dr Felicity Callard, Dr Rhodri Hayward, and Dr Angus Nicholls, the meeting will survey the field’s development since the foundation of HHS almost 20 years ago, and offer provocations – from various disciplinary perspectives – about the directions that it might take in the future.

Speakers include Roger Smith, Steve Fuller, Peter Mandler, Marianne Sommer, Amanda Rees, Michael Finn, Elizabeth Toon, Jessica Hendy, Maurizio Meloni, Des Fitzgerald, Alexandra Bacopoulos Viau, and Jonna Brenninkmeijer.

There will be four intensive sessions:

  1. The Problem of the Archive: biological data, digital media, material culture, and their impact upon the archive and human nature;
  2. The Problem of the Human: how the neurosciences are challenging conventional approaches to history;
  3. The Problem of the Social: How do models of ‘the social’ in the life sciences challenge those in the social sciences and humanities?
  4. Practice in the Human Sciences: new methods and approaches in medical humanities and science studies.

These sessions will be followed by a roundtable in which the outgoing and incoming History of the Human Sciences editors, plus speakers from the conference, discuss the state of the field and its future. Continue reading April 2016: “The Future of the History of the Human Sciences” →

APA Monitor: A History of Maze Research

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This month’s issue of the American Psychological Association‘s Monitor on Psychology has just gone online. Featured in this issue’s Time Capsule section is an article by C. James Goodwin on the history of maze research in American psychology. As Goodwin describes,

The idea for the first maze study was sparked by a conversation between Sanford and another Clark graduate student, Linus Kline. Small and Kline were both interested in the then-new Darwin-inspired field of comparative psychology. They had been studying rats and were especially interested in what they called the rat’s “home-finding” ability. Kline told Sanford he had observed “runways … made by large feral rats to their nests under the porch of an old cabin on [his] father’s farm in Virginia.” When these runways were exposed during an excavation, their maze-like appearance immediately suggested to Sanford using the Hampton Court Maze design to study “home-finding.”

At that time, the Hampton Court Maze in England was a popular tourist stop, arguably the world’s most famous hedge maze. It was part of the sprawling attraction of Hampton Court, just outside London, built as a home away from throne for the British royal family. Built in 1690, the maze consists of twists and turns and six-foot-tall hedges that continue to perplex visitors today. At the time of his conversation with Kline, Sanford had just returned from London; it is conceivable that he had visited the maze on that trip.

Whatever the origins of Sanford’s suggestion, the Clark lab soon had its own mini-version of the Hampton Court Maze, Continue reading APA Monitor: A History of Maze Research →